Rosethorn's Garden
by icecreamlova
Summary: Rosethorn and Crane have long, winding history, and a set of memories to match. Crane/Rosethorn Lark/Rosethorn. 6 - The final, triumphant end of an epidemic is not exactly triumphant at all.
1. The House that Crane Built

_This was compiled from ficlets written for Team Snark (Crane/Rosethorn), in SMACKDOWN, a competition hosted by Fief Goldenlake. A link to Goldenlake is on my profile – go check it out!_

_a/n: __The House that Crane Built__ and __Rosethorn's Garden__ are both set in the same universe. The other stories/sections are not related to them, but rather, are based around three themes (and take place in the canon universe):  
><em>_Six People__ - outsider POVs of Rosethorn and Crane, with various degrees of accuracy;  
><em>_Breaking Up __- out-takes on Crane and Rosethorn's canon breakup (and Rosethorn's subsequent new relationship with Lark);  
><em>_Road Home__ - the steps to re-establishing their relationship - new in some ways, but in others still the same_

* * *

><p><strong>The House that Crane Built<strong>_  
>By icecreamlova<em>

- : -

Laying the Foundation

- : -

Isas spends most of his first few weeks at Winding Circle quite alone: he doesn't care to socialize, and his year-mates pick up on that and treat him exactly the same way.

He doesn't find them interesting, so he feels little discomfort about his relative isolation.

While he is perfectly fine not speaking with those peers, he does miss speaking with someone who actually knows what they're talking about. He thought Winding Circle would be a fountain of knowledge; so far he's almost regretting coming.

And then he meets Niva.

It's his fault, really. He's marked her as one of his peers who actually possesses a brain, so he's intrigued when he sees her, dirt between bare toes and habit stained with grass. Those patches of weeds she's pulling out…

"Did someone plant fennel in a vegetable patch?" he asks disbelievingly. Surely, only capable dedicates are permitted to touch these gardens anyway. (Which actually begs the question of why she's allowed, and he isn't.)

She looks like she wants to roll her eyes, and settles for flicking her braid of auburn hair behind her back. "Help or leave," she retorts, and leaves it at that.

Later, Isas will think about the careful way she handles the surrounding vegetation, her deft precision with her tools, and the recognition that she prefers the wordless emotion from plants over mindless chatter of other humans. Later, he'll wonder if it is what makes him stay.

But he stays, and for that noon period spent digging up weeds, of all things, he doesn't ache to talk at all.

- : -

Walls

- : -

In Isas's world, there are two types of walls: the ones that he builds, and the ones that others build around him. As he grows older, though, it becomes more and more difficult to separate one from the other.

At first, he believes it's his upbringing that keeps his friendship with Niva at some sort of distance; he believes it's someone else's fault that their bickering always end with a step back, a disengagement.

But that's a lie, and Niva's words mark it as one. He cannot disagree when she snaps, "You make your own choices," with characteristic forthrightness, blushing with the heat of their arguments.

So when their joint education at Lightsbridge is announced, Isas seeks Niva out. He'll make those walls his own, and build them where he wants. He won't blame someone else.

- : -

Windows

- : -

Isas recognizes from childhood the impossibility of fully knowing another person, and takes advantage of that himself.

Others see only what he lets them see.

When his father visits, it's simple to draw a curtain around his thoughts and feelings, until his walls are what they see. Such fuss around the count's arrival – but no, he doesn't mind at all, it's just a family matter. (He minds: only his dutiful side doesn't, and he rather resents that.)

Strong opinions are expressed by the count – he'll take them into consideration, yes sir, it is true there are many vocations outside of temple dedicate. (But he doesn't want to spend his life governing his father's lands.)

His professors tell him he's suited to Lightsbridge, should he decide not to take his vows. (He shifts the window and shows that that he's flattered by the offer.)

He tells Niva that he knows where he's going, what he wants, and she just shakes her head. "You can stop deflecting the truth. It's perfectly obvious what's going on to anyone who looks," she informs him. "Unless 'anyone' refers to that twit, Professor Bluewater," she adds with a knowing grin, naming the professor he secretly despises, and her color seems to improve a little just from throwing out a barb.

He is unsure if he appreciates that someone else can see through the windows, open or closed, with no effort at all. But if it has to be someone, Isas is glad it's her.

- : -

Interlude A: Niva Would Like You To Know

- : -

Niva wants to assure you she doesn't like interfering with other people's business. She does, however, occasionally, through no fault of her own, stumble onto other people's business.

Niva wasn't prowling around Lightsbridge, looking for gossip. Her time is far better spent studying, so she can graduate early and leave this cursed, dry place, or in her garden, to touch green things and daydream of said day. But for some reason, you decided to spend your time there, and. Well. She can hardly help overhearing if, when she arrives, you have been accosted by your visiting father, and a lecture imbued by aristocratic arrogance is being shared.

Niva saw perfectly how you stopped drawling, how you stood straight until your thin frame made you look like a stork, how some part of you accepted your father's words, so that you'd have an excuse not to have to decide where to go from there.

Niva would like you to know that some people are idiots: knowing what they want, they hesitate to go after what will make them grow.

Niva won't tell you, though.

Niva never does interfere with other people's business.

(Unless you're Isas fer Yorvan, proud and vain and her friend. Then she'll tell you what you won't accept, and land on you with two feet if you continue to be silly.)

- : -

Doors

- : -

When Isas took his novice vows at Winding Circle, he laid foundations there for a life. He hadn't thought much about it at the time; Isas's ambition burned, but it was directionless, a vague impression of his life in some distant tomorrow.

Everything seemed so distant, even Niva. The time spent with her, arguing, competing, laughing wryly; those fleeting moments when they were nose to nose over a disagreement, blushing warmly, until he thought it was her breath against his mouth, and her skin brushing against his… even those moments faded in intensity, because they led nowhere. He stepped away, or she did, and in both instances he could almost hear a door swinging shut, leaving mingled relief and disappointment.

It took Isas longer than it should have to remember he had sworn he would build his walls where he wanted. Now it was up to him to decide what it was he wanted, and to open the doors.

"Stop dithering and make a decision," Niva snapped one day, and he couldn't help it.

Her lips were soft but her embrace was firm, certain, and right there.

"You're right," Isas said, half-bent over – she'd had to tug him down because of their height difference – and not caring a whit.

"I wish I had a way to record that," Niva said. A corner of her mouth tugged up. "Though I'm sure I can make you repeat it."

He had hesitated so long, wondering if he would regret letting her walk in through the door. He didn't.

- : -

Roofs

- : -

Wind whipped across the embankments of the rooftops, until he could barely hear his sigh of relief when he found her at last.

"Niva – "

"Did you ask for it, Isas? Another two years?"

He looked at her down-turned mouth, how she stood with her arms wrapped around her waist, her newly cropped auburn locks dancing across her jaw. He said the best answer, without pretense, without teasing: simply, "No."

She turned to stare out beyond Lightbridge's tall walls. "Two more years here. I want to go home and walk in it's gardens."

After a moment, he joined her there, in her quiet longing. When night fell, they returned down the stairs together, and didn't separate until morning.

- : -

"Did he – "

She hesitated.

"You may ask," Isas drawled, his face buried in his hands, elbows resting on the library table. "I promise I will not reproach you for it."

Niva snorted, and took a seat beside him, pushing away the stack of books that had hidden him from view.

His father had thought that he'd have longer to convince Isas to return to the family, only to discover that his errant son intended to visit Winding Circle at the end of the year and take his vows to become a dedicate. The count had been… displeased.

"If you keep staying up this late," Niva said, after silence had fallen for longer than was comfortable, "your complexion will be ruined." She would never say something as domestic as 'go to bed' but the meaning behind it was loud and clear. She rose, holding out a hand. It was warm when he took it.

It helped. That night, his sleep was peaceful.

- : -

The House that Crane Built

- : -

"He's not going to ask me again," Isas – newly named Crane – murmured against her neck.

He could feel Rosethorn still, as she changed from drowsy to awake. He hadn't told her about this at all.

She had probably suspected, though. His father's letter had been short and concise, but its contents must have lingered for a long time across his face as he processed the fact that he would never really belong to his family again.

Crane wasn't sure what he expected from someone who rarely spoke to humans, and never liked them, but he jolted when she pulled away. Light played across the muscles of her bare back, and made her normally steady eyes glimmer when they met his.

"If you regret it," she told him, "it's too late to leave. You've made your vows." With her words came the tacit assumption that he would never break them.

"I don't regret it," Crane said quietly, and breathed as her hand touched his chest, pressed down, and stayed there.

She hesitated, minutely, and said slowly, "I'm glad. That you stayed. Never tell anyone I said that."

Crane watched her falling asleep, these new moments stolen away from a busy day. He had known her for so long, and there was so much left to learn. He thought of their friendship, their rivalry, their exchanges on the advantages of one herb over another. He thought of Winding Circle's quiet, and its wide gardens, and the magnificent trees that told stories of long ago.

'I don't regret it,' he wouldn't have told her even if she were awake, but would have thought all the same. 'This is my home now.'

- : -

**Well?**


	2. Rosethorn's Garden

_a/n: three of the six herbs used as titles for the parts are explained within the fic. The other three were based on the following properties  
>Aloe: Healing, protection, grief, bitterness, affection<br>Bluebell: Luck, truth  
>Thyme: Activity, bravery, courage, strength<em>

_a/n 2: __Fennel__ takes place at the same time as __Laying the Foundation__. The others are scattered through-out the same timeline._

* * *

><p><strong>Rosethorn's Garden<strong>  
><em>By icecreamlova<em>

- : -

Fennel

"_I wake up in the night muttering stuff like 'fennel. None in the vegetable garden–most vegetables hate it.'"_ **– Briar, Sandry's Book**

- : -

When Niva convinced her father to send her to send her to Thyme Circle, she had thought the hard part was over. It was two months later that she realized, staring at Winding Circle's walls from the inside, that the hard part was only beginning.

The day she arrived at Winding Circle, mingled fear and hope fought for dominance, making her heart leap and stomach sink like a stone. Three weeks had passed, in which other novices avoided her in a polite, vague way, and she had begun wondering if the long journey from Anderran had been worth the effort.

She might have decided it was not if she hadn't found Isas. Or, more accurately, if he hadn't found her.

Three weeks of standing either alone, or among other girls with water-for brains who had been sent there by their parents for an education, and Niva had spoken to almost no one. She had, instead, spent her time wandering the temple, and in her patience was awarded with a small section of the temple's gardens calling out for her, protesting, imploring that she rid them of the intruder.

Niva was dismayed when she saw it was fennel. Vegetables didn't like it, but as a herb, it was still useful.

So for the next two hours, Niva busied herself with transplanting the fennel to a more isolated place, reasoning that, since this garden had been allowed to grow wild, no one would care. She barely noticed time passing, but she did notice when a shadow fell across her face.

She looked up, squinting, trying to place the tall boy. His white novice robes, and that height, was familiar. Yes. A class-mate. Isas, was it? A little proud, very distant? Just like every single other class-mate of hers: people weren't worth it.

Niva was busy, and he seemed unaware that he was staring: his eyes darting from the dirt at her feet to the stains on the habit she had found dirty, but neatly folded, in the other garden. Her short patience was almost at its end when he said, disbelievingly, "Did someone plant fennel in a vegetable patch?"

"Help or leave," Niva told him, well aware that she was being rude and not caring a whit, and turned back to her work.

She expected him to be just like any of those other silly geese that flocked in the temple, but Isas surprised her: he stooped beside her, hands reaching for the fennel, and stayed.

They worked through the afternoon in silence, and Niva admitted to herself that maybe Winding Circle wasn't so huge after all.

- : -

Cloth-of-Gold

- : -

"_Niva, sweet, it's time for you to come inside."_

"_Not until it's asleep, Luc."_

"_Papa will hang you by your heels in the well if you're not up early tomorrow."_

"_I can handle him," Niva says firmly, hands on her hips, and she tends her starling until thin mist obscures the skies, and her bean-runners have stopped whispering stories. She is happy._

- : -

"You really do prefer the company of birds to other humans."

"You really do like stating the obvious, don't you?"

His mouth twitches. She's sure of it. And he shifts when she moves to go around him, hiding something behind his back.

She narrows her eyes at him. "What's so funny?"

Isas is an aristocrat, but he isn't as good at hiding his expression as he believes. He gives up trying, and waves a hand loosely at the small bird cupped between her fingers, all pin-feathers and big, liquid yearning eyes. "I ought to present you with cloth-of-gold for your coming birthday," he drawls. "You would make more use of it, spelling it help you communicate with these beasts, than I would leaving it in my garden box."

And he presents her with cloth-of-gold.

She stares, and says the first thing that comes to mind. "Anyone would think you were courting me, with something this charming." His new friends among the novices, as few as they are, spring to mind.

His cheeks dust rose, but holds it out anyway, and their hands brush as she takes them.

"You grew these for me?" she asks, with the wonder of someone who knows the contents of his small box-gardens inside out. "In the day since I rescued Squeek?"

He sniffs, knowing it irritates her and not looking as though he cares – he's doing it on purpose! "You underestimate my powers."

_No,_ Niva thinks. _Just you, as one of those rich idiots with an unfortunate talent for green things. I won't do that again._

- : -

The ground is dry and even weeds struggle to take hold.

Niva shows her newly rescued starling its nest at her window, next to her small window-box of fennel. She's formed a small garden within Lightbridge's walls, but she can't bear to sleep without something green.

And now the starling joins her collection of precious memories, of a time she wasn't trapped in this house of dust.

- : -

Interlude B: Meaning Number Two (of Joy)

- : -

Isas was somewhere across the ocean and she couldn't be any happier.

He was visiting the family who, he had admitted, would probably do quite a bit to keep him from returning and taking his vows. He was beyond the reach of magic, too far away for the whispering-bright intimacy that stretched between two young green mages. He could be lost to her forever.

Niva could barely smile any more than she did now into her musty tome of Endless Ocean Island herb extract diagrams.

Now she had time to spend quietly among the small patch of herbs she cultivated just beyond Lightsbridge's ancient walls. Now she didn't have to smolder over cyclic, uncompromising arguments that tore classrooms with their ferocity. Now her lips and tongue and mouth were not sore.

She couldn't be happier. Really.

She couldn't be any happier, because joy had become too fleeting to find; she couldn't be any happier because Niva didn't miss that arrogant stick, not at all.

She couldn't be any happier because every time she tried to smile, just out of the blue, her lips seemed to shape a terrible lie. Her books were distractions and her plants fragile solitude from the rest of the world.

She couldn't be any happier, but she couldn't be any sadder, either, because both felt the same when Isas visited his family and she was trapped, alone, in lifeless, gray Lightsbridge.

- : -

Aloe

- : -

Rosethorn remembered Lightsbridge as a place of horror. There were no trees, not flowers, and only the toughest brown-green vines clung to the outside of its walls; weeds could barely stand to grow in its enchanted corners. Dust gathered in its basements, and powders were always fresh enough to sting.

To Rosethorn, Lightsbridge was the place her oldest relationship broke down. Never mind that Isas had always been proud, always been convinced of his infallibility. Never mind that it was at Lightsbridge where she first recognized the leap in her heart at his presence, the burning where they touched, the impracticality of kissing someone a foot taller. It was at Lightsbridge that pride changed to arrogance, and competitiveness changed to bitter rivalry. It was Lightsbridge that drew him to start planting the stem of one plant onto another, and ignore the wrongness of it.

Lightsbridge forced her to do what she hated, and turned the laboratory work she liked into chores she couldn't stand. The shiny sterile white surfaces, the clink of impeccable glass tools, and the quiet murmuring in the background made her long to throw out her arms and bloom like the giant flowers of her aloe plants, just to see what others could do about it. The musty books and their drawings of exotic plants were burdens of knowledge without restraint or wisdom, and only sharpened her longing for the quiet understanding of Dedicate Elmsbrook and his garden of living, breathing herbs.

Rosethorn came to regard Lightsbridge as darkness without joy, forgetting the thrill of his arms around her in some deserted corner in her memories of his cold, sharp approach to plants after their second year of studying. She forgot the patient advice of the Dean in her memories of Professor Bluewater's tyranny. For as long as she attempted to avoid remembering anything about Lightsbridge, she couldn't recognize, and come to treasure, the seeds of making plants bloom in a riot of color to taunt Lightsbridge's cold. For as long as she picked out only the bitterest moments, she couldn't remember the sweetness of exploring Karang's capital with Isas and their friends.

For as long as she saw only the darkness, she forgot that it was in darkness that a candle shone brighter, and that those lovely moments were like sunlight.

- : -

Bluebell

"_Eight years. It took six of us eight years to blend these essences, to reduce the need to experiment on human beings. Xiyun Mountstrider, from Yanjing, died of breakbone fever in the third year. We thought we would never succeed without him. Ulra Stormborn went blind in the fifth year. First Dedicate Elmbrook took Ibaru fever and bled to death inside her skin in the seventh year, and we continued the work."_ – **Briar's Book, Chapter 12**

- : -

First Dedicate Elmsbrook died on a warm summer's day. She was survived by her estranged daughter, her devastated lover, and her two students-turned-peers on the Human Essence Project. At the very end, Rosethorn and Crane had been forced to leave their former teacher's side, or risk the failure of the strand of a theory they'd been following for the past three years.

It felt to Rosethorn almost as though they had chosen the project over Elmsbrook's life, even if she called herself a ninny in her head, because by the time they emerged from the laboratory, cautiously hopeful that this final test would confirm the viability of the essence of any single age group, the news had been waiting for three hours. The delicate hope, the fragile reconciliation she thought she might build with Crane, had shattered. They'd walked to the morgue in silence.

They returned to work the next day. She wasn't in idiot, and both of them remembered the terrible screaming during the previous epidemic. They'd had to suspend work on the project, and the first cure the four mages felt secure enough to test on a patient sent two of their ten patients into intermittent screaming and seizures. By the time they perfected the treatment, over a period of three more days and three nights of haunting dreams, the two had died.

As she and Crane checked the results of their research, and their colleague checked hers, Rosethorn couldn't help but wonder who among them was next.

Rosethorn's results showed progress towards a possible broad diagnostic powder, but they were set aside in favor of following Crane's. Rosethorn wondered if Crane, too, was reliving the breakthrough Xiyun gave his life to complete, for he made no sarcastic comment, no gloating witticism.

(She had known, four years ago. She'd been roused from her nightmares by his tossing and turning, and they'd lost themselves in each other in their desperate passion until they reached some modicum of peace. They'd risen side by side so often that it had taken months to get used to waking alone.)

For the next seven days, Rosethorn and Crane performed experiment after experiment, remixing the keys and relying on the luck of the draw for success. For the next seven nights, Rosethorn dreamt of her volunteers' faces as they died around her, her old nightmare returned. For the next seven mornings, long before dawn, Rosethorn woke with her former teacher's name on her lips.

On the seventh night, Rosethorn forced herself out of bed and walked to the door, opening it before Crane could knock. They stared at each other, and each saw the same conflict written across the other's face, saw the chance to drown it with something else. In so many ways, they were like young saps planted in the same soil, branches facing away but roots still the same distance apart. She had been about to head into his rooms, and knock on the door, and that was a truth of their relationship.

They spoke little, like in the last days of their relationship, a far cry from the laughter and playfulness of the early courtship, but the next day, Rosethorn rose with the sun and not before.

The morning after, they arrived to an outcome that knocked the wind out of Rosethorn, sudden fierce joy at the good fortune that had presented the project with success. And because this, too, was a truth of their relationship, they spent that night, and ones after that, in their own rooms, alone.

- : -

Thyme

- : -

Rosethorn gathered her courage and visited his greenhouse, the day Lark deemed her well enough to leave her tender care. (Her lover, Rosethorn had discovered, could be absolutely terrifying when she wanted.)

Crane poured tea into cups of celestial blue, a strange emotion in his eyes that made Rosethorn uncomfortable. It looked like concern, maybe even like affection. Rosethorn couldn't abide affection from him.

"Stop looking at me like that," she snapped.

Crane sniffed. "As difficult as it is to believe, I cannot find anything wrong with being grateful you are alive."

Rosethorn swallowed, and she wanted to speak, but her numb tongue would not move. What could she say? Even if Crane would have believed her, she was banned from speaking of her hours in death. How could she phrase what she wanted to tell him?

Tea scalded her throat. Rosethorn choked.

"I was led to believe you were completely recovered," Crane drawled, setting down the teapot.

"I am," Rosethorn said sharply, glaring at him. "If you're _implying_ that I stay shut up like an invalid – " She broke off. "What's so funny?"

"Lark has always brought out your best side. If she couldn't do it," Crane told her, "I will not make a futile attempt."

Oh.

Well.

"You would think that, wouldn't you?" she said, unsurprised, reaching across his decorative mahogany table to take his elegant hand in her palms.

"You've given me no cause to think otherwise," Crane said slowly, stroking the back of her hand. "And," he admitted, "I was so angry. So rash. I gave you no reason to regret your choice."

"Too right you didn't," Rosethorn muttered, closing her hand over his cheek. She saw him take in a slow, shuddering breath.

"Your method of announcing it was unnecessarily blunt," Crane said.

"You needed it," argued Rosethorn. "It was like you couldn't stop looking down your nose at me long enough to get it into your head that I was, that Lark and I could – "

"And still do?"

"Yes," Rosethorn said, immediately. She would make that particular fact clear. "But if the Blue Pox, and" – death – "pneumonia gave me one gift, it was perspective. For my life. For this."

Somehow, they had ended up sitting next to each other, and even after so long, they just fit. They sipped tea, spoke of disease, and Rosethorn didn't dwell on memories.

- : -

Rosemary

_There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember._ – **Shakespeare, **_**Hamlet**_.

- : -

Rosethorn's garden is a garden of memories. Each herb, each flower carries a specific moment. The fennel in the corner are descendants of those that salvaged from a deserted north-west corner of Winding Circle's vegetable gardens, twenty years ago. The bunch of irises in the corner were presents from Lark before they were together, a secret love confession through the language of flowers.

But not all memories dwell within the plants. The cloth-of-gold that were Isas's first gifts have dried and wilted; the bramble-making magic that nearly killed her has vanished; the blue-pox that did kill her leaves only a slow tongue that she's come to talk around.

After Rosethorn arrives back from Gyongxe, she takes time, and has help, to explore through the memories. She walks through the garden that Lark has tended in her absence, amusing herself by scaring Comas, running a dirt-covered thumb over the back of bronzed skin and trying to talk. Lark hugs her, kisses her, and lets her stand wordless, her past running through her and seeping into the dirt.

With some memories, she turns to him: some because she cannot vocalize them to Lark, and others because, if she has to tell them to someone, she trusts the secrets with him. When Lark smiles at Crane across the breakfast table, Rosethorn pretends not to notice the gratitude for that in Lark's smile. (She was NOT afraid, returning, when she wondered what their relationship would become. Not afraid. Maybe… apprehensive at the most. Nervous, possibly.)

Crane sees the scars across her back and her thighs, and plants kisses where magic stabbed her body. Afterwards, when Rosethorn has caught her breath, she rolls over, and she doesn't know how he does it (though she thinks he does enjoy baiting her anger, her sharp-edged passions) but bits and pieces of the war come tumbling out. Bits of pieces of the visit, too, of the young, vibrant teenagers who helped them, because she won't forget the light for the dark.

Between them, the mind-healer pronounces Rosethorn recovering (and she wishes Briar would just take her advice already.)

"Adolescents make their mistakes," Crane drawls into her ear. "You certainly made enough of your own."

"You were worse," she points out. "All of mine, and more."

But she doesn't dwell on them. She tends her garden, and it blooms with new life.

- : -

**Well?**


	3. Six People Who Watched

_a/n: from here on out, the pieces are __unrelated__ unless otherwise indicated. They have simply been grouped under the same theme._

* * *

><p><strong>Six People Who Watched Crane and Rosethorn<strong>  
><em>By icecreamlova<em>

- : -

Professionals

- : -

If someone had told Briar, just before Blue Pox broke out, that Rosethorn and Crane would work side by side without muttering death threats, he would have laughed in the unfortunate person's face. (He wouldn't threaten them: Rosethorn could do that fine by herself.)

Which was why he was surprised, to say the least, to find them bent over the same well of essence, with the same rack of ingredients further up the bench, pursuing the same task with single-minded fervor.

The room was the quietest in the greenhouse, and Briar's ears were sharp, but their heads were bent so close he couldn't hear what puzzle they discussed. Their hands moved across the bench, Rosethorn's palms open to accept a tiny crystal jar in the exact moment Crane offered; Crane turning to look at some symbol Rosethorn sketched across the desk, even before her fingers touched the wood and started drawing.

When Crane returned to his desk, Briar was astounded to realize that he had come and gone without a single argument – as though Crane and Rosethorn were street urchins, who hadn't the luxury of letting emotions get in the way of their tasks.

- : -

A View From the Window

- : -

It's an absolutely disgusting hour to be awake, but Sandry has been sleepless since before midnight devotions. Sweat rolls mercilessly along her temples, down her neck and back, clinging to her legs; she gives up and rolls out of bed.

She paces to the window and peers out, wishing Tris hadn't gone, wishing Briar and Rosethorn weren't about to leave… and nearly takes a step back in surprise. There, right outside, stand Rosethorn and Crane, silver light making their different colored robes appear the same deep gray. Their feet fade into the darkness, but she can see their faces so clearly.

They're not speaking. They're not even looking at each other. Sandry still knows, somehow, that meanings lie thickly in the still air. This is a private moment, but curiosity has always been her weakness, so she watches as they run hands down the stems of plants, pluck leaves here and there, and do not say a thing.

What Sandry finds strangest is that, otherwise, they give every indication of being caught in a conversation: heads turning this way or that, an arch of an eyebrow rising beneath the silver moon, lips curving into crescent smiles…

It's what the children of Discipline do every day.

Finally, Crane's long fingers unwrap, gently, from around the stem of one of Rosethorn's tomato plants. "To think I never knew…"

"Now you'll have no excuse for being a ninny if another epidemic strikes," Rosethorn says, still touching her bean plants' stalks. "You'll be able to reach me through the plants."

Crane shakes his head. "This is ridiculous. I should be glad I no longer need to argue with you." The soft quality in his voice says otherwise.

They stand on opposite sides of Rosethorn's garden, but when Crane runs a hand across her blooming vines, tracing their silvery stems, Rosethorn shivers, as though he'd touched her. Her hands cup the bean leaves, and he is still, very still, eyes closed, breathing heavy.

Sandry finally turns away, not disappointed that her window into their conversation has vanished. She is, instead, strangely glad that all they could bear to say aloud was spoken somewhere beyond her hearing.

- : -

Comas

- : -

My favorite part of my work is doing the mending! Maybe others will tease me for it… they can't understand why a teenage boy will do 'women's work', but, well. I sort of kind of just stay away from them? I mean, yes, I stay away from them and take pride in my magic. Yes.

When I'm doing something busy, I can watch other people: they think I'm not paying attention. (Lady Sandrilene laughs when I tell her this, for some reason). I would never spy on – erm, watch I mean, purposefully or accidentally – Dedicate Rosethorn, though! She's terrifying! You know, the first thing she said to me when she arrived back from the east?

"Touch my bean runners and I'll hang you from the well."

Lark and Lady Sandrilene assure me that she says this to everyone. I'm not convinced: I give her a wide berth.

I give her an even wider berth when Dedicate Crane visits. (I thought I'd be safe from him here, but no such luck.) She raised an eyebrow when she heard how I accidentally unraveled the black embroidery of his habit, congratulated me. Then she said I'd have to show my face a few times just to vex Crane. I know you're supposed to obey your teachers but actually, I sort of just want to be left alone. So every time I see them in the garden, kneeling on the dirt and arguing over plants, or… not arguing, I run.

I'm me that way. No shame in running.

- : -

Gossip

- : -

Lark has always been observant. She notices discrepancies before anyone else: her mother's coughing fits, the lawmen filtering through the crowds watching her troupe tumble, Rosethorn's thoughtful stare when she watches Crane pass.

Lark doesn't subscribe to gossip; it hurt her far too much. If she had taken gossip to mind when she first came, she would have left Winding Circle by now, in tears, as the novices looked down their noses. She wouldn't have met Rosethorn.

That's why, when she sees the way Rosethorn and Crane take long paths to avoid each other, she waits in the Earth Temple dormitories for her friend to return. She asks. "Did you love him?"

Rosethorn stops, stares, and finally, with the honesty she shows her closest friend, answers, "Yes." She doesn't volunteer any more.

With that answer in mind, what Lark doesn't have to ask is if Rosethorn still does.

She finds that she can accept that part of Rosethorn, if Rosethorn ever catches onto what Lark feels.

- : -

Our Mistakes

- : -

When the time came for Tris to leave for Lightsbridge, each member of the family had their own advice.

"Keep yourself healthy," Daja said.

"Try to make friends?" Sandry asked.

"Keep from sparking," Briar said, with a grin, as Tris got impatient from all the talk.

Rosethorn wasn't like her siblings. She gave advice only once, and the tone of her voice made Tris stop and listen.

"When I was at Lightsbridge," Rosethorn said quietly, "I lost myself there. My friendship with Crane, my sense of belonging. It took years to get back, but eventually, when I remembered that Crane wasn't just an idiot, and that Niko had studied at Lightsbridge, I remembered the good as well as the bad."

Rosethorn didn't say any more. Tris didn't think she'd need the advice in this way – not when she loved books – but she did remember the way Rosethorn and Crane stomped on each others' toes, during her first days at Lightsbridge.

Tris knew, then, that if she ever found herself lost in the crowd and Lightsbridge, she wouldn't bury it like Rosethorn did. She thought that might have been the moral of Rosethorn's story.

- : -

Appearances

- : -

This is what the novices of Winding Circle see, when they come upon Crane and Rosethorn arguing:

Two of their teachers fighting bitterly. They despise each other, with fierce rivalry, and do not care who know it.

- : -

When Rosethorn walks over to Crane, she is looking for a fight.

She stares down at his experiments with a keen eye and reckless attitude – his attitude – and tells him he's doing things wrong.

There's something interesting about the tilt of his head, then, something considering in the look of his eye: she likes it. She missed it for a long time, but the Blue Pox brought them back together.

"You have no method," he sniffs. "I'm going through them systematically."

"You'll never get through everything that way," Rosethorn says sharply, leaning closer and watching the light flicker on behind his eyes.

"Better than missing out because of over-reliance on instinct," Crane sniffs, and his eyes widen.

She's leaned close to whisper, "Really? I've always thought instinct was… very useful."

"Rosethorn," he points out, taking a step back and gesturing expansively, "we're in a glasshouse. The students are watching."

She can see them in the corner of her eye, trying to hear through the sea of glass separating them. "Then," she murmurs, "we'd better put on a show."

- : -

Let this, they whisper to one another, be a lesson: never let your work consume you, or you might lose your friends.

- : -

**Well?**


	4. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

**Breaking Up Is Hard To Do  
><strong>_By icecreamlova_

- : -

Regret

- : -

There are many things Rosethorn regrets. Many things. One is studying at Lightsbridge, where nothing blooms.

Academic spells beyond the scope of Winding Circle are necessary. She knows this. It's just...

Before lifeless Lightsbridge, she had been in love, and sure of it. (No one made her laugh and shout and scowl like that.)

But feelings were confused, and people changed (into arrogant sticks) and made a muck of things. (No one watched walking away quite like that.)

Lightsbridge cut her ties with absolutely everyone.

She will never forgive losing the chance to learn if it was really time to let Isas go.

- : -

Choice

- : -

She doesn't choose him.

Crane knows he shouldn't be surprised, because, in the end, he hadn't chosen her either. The greenhouse had taken his time; then picking an apprentice among the talented novices. And there was throwing himself into his work, to stop thinking, to keep from choosing... He had never managed to find the time to stop by the Earth Temple to see her. Now he has the time, but no reason to go.

It does surprise him, though.

He had forgotten.

Crane doesn't tell himself he's arrogant and self-absorbed to think Rosethorn would have waited for him, when he wouldn't do the same, because he remembers now.

Dedicate Rosethorn has never waited for someone else to make the decision for her. She blazes through life in a glory of wild thorns and bristles. Now someone else shares her bed and heart.

When the world moves around you, overwhelmingly fast, one can stop at where two roads diverge, can dither, but that in itself is a choice. One cannot 'abstain' from choosing. And when it's something as simple, as important as reminding someone "I love you," it is often a decision people regret.

By then it is too late.

- : -

Mercy

- : -

Rosethorn did not expect to see that venerably uptight, annoyingly stiff former best friend of hers outside Discipline's gate, looking as lost as one of the twitterpated novices on their first day with classes.

Superficially, he was utterly composed and absolutely under control. Crane would never leave the Air Temple were he not immaculate and dressed in a shade of yellow that complimented his features - in a way that made his frown seem thunderous, and pursed lips seem forever on the edge of a lofty barb. But... she thought he looked...

...What was she thinking? This was Crane, not Isas; she was Rosethorn, not Niva. And now that she was Earth and he Air, they never even spoke. They hadn't, really, for nearly eighteen months.

"Your tomatoes," Crane said. It took a moment for Rosethorn to realize he was speaking to her - so lacking was his voice in familiarity, or the casual sarcasm that familiarity can breed. "They're growing well."

Rosethorn laid her gardening fork aside and wiped her hands briskly, leaving a shower of dirt on her habit. She didn't rise. She wouldn't, for him. "You would sound more convinced about that if there were other plants to compare mine with, wouldn't you?"

She hadn't meant it as a barb, but she wasn't surprised that he took it as one. Heated nights sharing a bed didn't equate to sharing a mind, but it seemed now that they had stopped, their words lost meaning, unless the meaning was the worst insult possible.

"My greenhouse is more than your, your-cabbage patch," he bit back.

It took exactly two seconds for Rosethorn to abandon any sense of civility and reply, "Said like a rich man who doesn't know what really matters."

She knew it hit him hard. She also knew she didn't regret it. Even argument could be a mercy now that it was compared to stifling silence, and she had never truly minded bickering in the past.

Crane blinked, perhaps as surprised as she felt, at the target she'd chosen once she decided to strike back. (Rosethorn had always known his sorest points and all his hidden weaknesses.)

But where Rosethorn held out a hand, Crane stepped back:

"You never change," he scoffed condescendingly, and that was true, because plants were earthy and cranes flighty, and only one person needed to move to scratch a line in the sand between them.

Crane's abrupt dismissal was as deep as a trench, dividing the past and future, the joy and strife they would never again share.

- : -

_("Rose petal extract."_

_"Rosehip oil - seven parts at least."_

_"Would you wager your apprenticeship on that?"_

_"I bet on whatever I like, Isas."_

_"Twenty-four hours then before we ask who was right."_

_"Don't spend it all in the library, Rich-boy!"_

_"I wasn't planning to," he said, hiding paper-cut hands, while she yawned and bit her lip to keep from grinning.)_

- : -

And perhaps, that, too, was a sort of mercy, for two whose pride kept their rivalry alive.

- : -

Green

- : -

_Envy_

Isas took to Lightsbridge like a starling to the skies: it took a few days to adjust, but after that, it felt like he had been born to live there. Rosethorn told herself she didn't wonder what it was like, but she did.

Rosethorn and Lark walked the roads of Winding Circle blissfully unaware of anyone else. Lark laughed, and Rosethorn smiled, and they didn't argue. Crane didn't wonder what it was like to feel Rosethorn's soft side, rather than her hard edges and anger.

_Spring_

Pink flowers were budding on her plants in her garden patch. Rosethorn spent her day on her knees, dragging her student with her, and together they bathed in new life.

_Death_

The body floated in the sea, face bloated, and cast an eerie shade of green by the refracting sea-water. Crane had to turn his face away.

_Plants_

"A tomato plant for a _shakkan_? You cannot be serious."

"It's hurt! Even you can see the edges of its leaves turning brown!"

Crane sniffed. "Through no fault -"

"It didn't choose you," Rosethorn snapped. "And Briar can -"

"A child -"

"It called to him," Rosethorn said. "That's what it wants. What it needs."

They glared at each other across Discipline's breakfast table.

Crane left with the tomato plant.

- : -

Crane vs the Tomato Plant

- : -

For three days it sat in his greenhouse, and he wouldn't touch it. He tended his seedlings.

On the fourth day, the plant got offended and turned half its leaves brown, and Crane finally decided to speak to it. (He wasn't as empathic as Rosethorn, he was forced to admit, but he could communicate.)

Rosethorn, the plant said, had told it to flourish, but it couldn't when there was barely any dirt under its roots.

Crane sat back for a moment. The next few hours were spent digging it a place in the glasshouse.

The plant seemed a little surprised, or as surprised as a plant could be, that the warmth and sunshine of the glasshouse didn't bother it. Crane couldn't squash a small hint of satisfaction at that, and wondered how he might mention the fact to Rosethorn.

The plant didn't bloom, though. It didn't die, but it bore little fruit, and just sat in the corner, drinking in the sunshine, off in its own little patch of dirt.

Somehow, Crane fell into the habit of checking up on it just as the glasshouse was to close for the night. (He would never admit it was because the tomato plant seemed to speak with Rosethorn's sharp, mocking voice.) The tomato plant was always a bit sleepy, but also willing to talk about such important things as the state of its patch of soil, and how fertilizers were used.

Crane started speaking to the plant, and his glare was sufficiently intimidating to scare off any novice who might spread rumors to that infuriating woman at Discipline about his visits.

It took until Rosethorn fell ill from working great magic on Winding Circle's walls that Crane just decided to ask. In between booms from the attacking pirates' weapons, he sat beside it on the soil, and laid a hand on its stem, and said, "Why aren't you flourishing?"

The tomato plant may or may not have been thinking in the moment before Crane got a sense of a reply: Longing and loneliness, for Rosethorn's garden, for Rosethorn's love, because at least, there, the gardener cared for it.

Crane didn't admit that he thought he knew how the plant felt. Sometimes, he couldn't help himself, and felt the same way.

When Rosethorn returned from Emelan's north, it was to find that the tomato plant was flourishing. Crane refrained from telling her what the plant, thriving now, had also conveyed:

_She thinks about the bird one. But sometimes, she can't help but let her mind wander to the glasshouse._

He didn't say that, sometimes, he felt the same way.

- : -

Reality

- : -

In reality, things were often a double-edged sword. There were some outcomes that Rosethorn loved, others she hated.

In reality, working with Crane in his greenhouse was confusing. They hadn't properly spoken for years and she'd convinced herself that she was fine with it.

She had always hated the glasshouse, and she had forgotten how much she disliked him.

But working with Crane on the Blue Pox also reminded her of the better side of their relationship. She had forgotten that Lark and Briar weren't the only one to bring out her softness. She and Crane fought often, but there were many moments when they didn't, working side by side and understanding without words.

In reality, working with Crane was a gift, as well as a curse.

- : -

It Will Hurt

_"-and-yes-Crane! You'll be leaving him behind_." - **Briar, Circle of Magic #4**, _Chapter 13_

- : -

Briar's every word drops like a stone, casting painful ripples of the smooth pond of her death.

She hadn't been expecting that, but she should have: the children have surprised her at every turn. Of course Briar would find some way to bring her old wounds into death, in his misguided attempt to bring her back. Of course they would strike her hard, when she should be beyond regrets.

There are some things magic cannot fix. The past is one of them, because what happens, happens, no matter what someone else says. From the past stems old regrets. You can't change those either, but if you're lucky, you can accept them, maybe forget them. Rosethorn thought she had.

But the succession of names proves her wrong: Rosethorn wants to be at peace, but she can't when every name brings out a flinch: the girls, Little Bear, Niko, Frostpine, Lark.

And Crane.

His name hurts. That's unexpected.

Yes, Crane too, Rosethorn finally admits to herself, now that only Briar is watching, and nothing is lost and everything gained by admitting the truth. Both Crane and Isas, because you don't choose your regrets, no matter how many child-friendly synonyms for idiot you call yourself. She'll miss the others, because she likes them, because she [i]loves[/i] Lark and Briar. She'll miss Crane - has missed him for years - not because she likes him, but because despite herself, even now, there's respect there, and she does care for him.

(It makes her smile wryly: even in death, he's a burr between her toes. It surprises her, a little, that for all the unchangeable regrets she holds about Isas, this isn't one of them.)

Dead, she shouldn't have to think about the unchangeable.

But Briar doesn't understand when she tells him, "I can't go back. It will hurt." He makes her think about it anyway, when he threatens her with holding the greatest regret of her existence - his death - and brings her back to life.

- : -

_To be concluded..._

**Well?**


	5. The Road Home

_The end - seriously, this time._**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>The Road Home<strong>  
><em>By icecreamlova<em>

- : -

Burning

- : -

When he lays a hand on her forehead, it feels like it's burning.

He spends more time by Rosethorn's bed than he ought to, on the first day. He has work to do: the best way he can help is to work in his greenhouse and find a way to heal her.

But it's harder than he might have thought, to stay away, when he's this close to losing her. (And how unfair that would be, to rediscover a friendship in their arguments only to lose it a few days later).

It takes more effort than Crane would have predicted, to let Briar enhance the willowbark tea, so that he'll have his magic to work. But he does it, all the same, and returns to his greenhouse alone.

- : -

Work

- : -

He unties the ribbon around Rosethorn's message and doesn't frown at how thick the stack of papers is, once it's unrolled.

She should be resting; she needs to recover. Every day she is away from the greenhouse, another day of expertise is lost, and hundreds more in Summersea join the armies of the dead. ("You're not getting rid of me that easily," she'd said, and he knows now that she meant it.)

Crane slips the top-most of her papers onto his desk, smoothing it, crisp and crackling, across the precious wood. His white, china paperweight secures the top, while his palm, set against her message's smooth surface, keeps it from rolling back together again. It takes him a few moments to adjust the lamp, to make it bright enough that reading becomes less of a chore.

He reads her words and scribbled ideas, and knows he is fooling himself. No one who has fallen ill has survived the Blue Pox. No one. Rosethorn, with her sharp mind and irrational affections and coarse mouth - she's going to die unless a cure is found. He knows this as well as her wild-eyed apprentice does. Better. He'll do anything to keep it from happening.

So he'll push himself, and the boy, and indeed Rosethorn herself, even if she's near death, until he can buy the passage for her return.

- : -

Faith

- : -

Rosethorn doesn't always think much of Crane's personality, his methods, or his empathy as a green mage. Every time she visits that little glasshouse of his, she practically breaks out in hives, and makes no secret of it.

When it comes down to it, though, Crane is still one of the few she trusts. They've worked together so long she knows his mind better than any other, and she knows he'll pull through with the cure for blue pox.

So although she is hallucinating, she has hope that she'll recover. Briar and Lark and the girls give her a reason to: Crane gives her a basis.

- : -

Romance, or a lack thereof

- : -

There were many places Crane considered romantic, or would if he ever contemplated such silly, transient notions. The perfect place, if such a place could ever be defined, to make a speech and admit a feeling strong enough to change a life forever.

The sickroom of a recently ill Dedicate Rosethorn was not one of those places, but he supposed it would suffice.

"Will you just spill it out?" Rosethorn snapped, irritable with alternating boredom, fatigue and coughing. "I have no time to waste on watching you pacing."

"I thought time," Crane retorted, "was the one thing you had aplenty."

"Not for this," Rosethorn insisted. She sat up, and though her hair was tangled and face contorted into a scowl, the healthy coolness of her skin was the loveliest thing Crane had ever seen. Not that he would tell her.

"Crane," Rosethorn said exasperatedly, "it can't be that bad-"

"I love you."

"Oh," Rosethorn said. "It is that bad." He winced and she didn't, for Rosethorn never apologized for being blunt, but the blank surprise on her face soothed him a little. She had been shocked. Truly, amazingly, shocked.

"Absolutely terrible," Crane agreed, "since I still cannot stand you."

Rosethorn softened almost imperceptibly. "All this time, Crane?"

Crane sighed. The chair he pulled out scraped against the floor as he sat in it, draped almost comfortably, but not quite. "I thought I had forgotten. If I could. But then I almost lost you. Tell me I should have pretended nothing changed."

Rosethorn didn't say yes - how could she? She was barely free of the hallucinations from her fever, and both a pitcher of cool water and a pot of willowbark tea stood on the small table by her bed.

"Some feelings are more difficult to lose than others," Crane said, covering one of her hands with his.

After a moment, Rosethorn's other hand clasped his - small but tough, strong digits and neat nails, around Crane's elegant fingers.

"I know," she said quietly, hands tightening briefly. "After all, I'm still angry with you." And she grinned.

- : -

Interlude C: This is All Your Fault

- : -

"This is all your fault," Niva muttered, wiping down the bubbling bench top.

"Excuse me?" Isas said, dismantling the volatile magic of the potions that remained in their flask.

"Who was the one that said, 'Gorse's soup, this time'?"

"Who was the one who agreed?"

"I wanted to find the ingredients for perfume," Niva muttered. "You were just afraid I'd win again."

"You were the one who suggested we use magic to test for Gorse's ingredients, rather than just asking," Isas pointed out.

"I didn't want to get into trouble."

"In case it has escaped your attention," drawled Isas, now sweeping up broken glassware, "we are in trouble."

Niva dropped her rag and sighed. "Who knew Dedicate Gorse was so secretive about his ingredients?"

Gorse, they discovered in the worst possible way, had spelled the food in his kitchens to prevent just the diagnostic they'd attempted.

- : -

Peace

- : -

Rosethorn is at peace when she tends her garden. She hums, patiently digging and weeding and reshaping. The sun crawls across the otherwise motionless sky, but she doesn't notice. She sees nothing but a sea of green: dark leaves smooth and waxy, delicate shoots creeping towards the light, pale new growth unfurling like a baby Shriek exploring his nest. All the calm acceptance she cannot shape among humans flows into her plants, and they rejoice in it. Rosethorn's garden blooms because she does.

Crane is at peace when teaching. His drawl washes over his competent students. Their attentive faces are a sort of acceptance surpassed only by his plants, which thrive in the humidity of his greenhouse. As he lectures, his frustrations seep away until only knowledge, and the passing of it, remain. Listening, his students soak it up like bean runners in the sun, and begin to understand how the condescending man they resented became a legend.

When Crane and Rosethorn cross paths, the results tend to be explosive - snapping, arguing, maybe a little attempted maiming, and the bluntest, least veiled slights to ever turn Winding Circle's two greatest green mages into bickering adolescents. No one would argue that they are at peace.

But occasionally - nothing close to always, but sometimes - if you look closely, you would swear Crane and Rosethorn part ways with small, secret smiles.

- : -

Love

- : -

Crane was not a particularly affectionate creature. That wasn't what love meant to him.

(Crane didn't include in this his feelings for his plants, which were a great deal affection and much less everything else. That was one luxury allowed to the head of the Air Temple.)

He wasn't affectionate about his temple, after all. He wasn't 'affectionate' about his greenhouse.

He wasn't 'affectionate' to Dedicate Rosethorn, who would reward such gestures with suspicion and torment - he wasn't Dedicate Lark. And he certainly wasn't 'affectionate' to Rosethorn when no one else was looking, alone in the shrouded gardens of his greenhouse, where vines clung to glass and tore at bare backs unless they were gentled out of the way.

Normally, Rosethorn had a soft touch with plants, but urgency demanded force, and that, too, she had aplenty. Grass blooms beneath their entwined fingers and blushing cheeks, cushioning bodies and softening groans and moans.

Outside the greenhouse, novices passed with nary a glance past the thick vines fueled by the passion of two great green mages.

Inside, there was love, or as close as there could be between Crane and Rosethorn.

- : -

Rivals

- : -

"That lady - the one with the fox-fur bag."

"You want me to steal -"

"- ask - "

" - _steal perfume_ from the Lady Katerine du Luca- "

" - _ask_ her. How else will we know who got her perfume mix right? She'll listen to you. You're one of them... Isas?"

"...Very well - if I must to prove I was correct."

"Don't forget who won last time."

"I have not. I'll remedy that. Lady Katerine..."

_Later..._

"Your smirk somehow manages to be more annoying than a victory dance. Will you stop it?"

"I am not gloating, Niva. It is unseemly."

"Exactly."

- : -

The bird lay with its wings secured by splints. Shocks of newly grown feathers formed short, gray tufts over healed wounds. On one side of the room, Niva raised an eyebrow. Isas smirked return and moved aside to reveal _his_ patient, a ball of fuzzy brown feathers and huge liquid eyes. Its uncertain chirping filled the air.

Niva merely frowned, crossing to the basket on his workbench to peer at the recovering sparrow. Her frown deepened and she gestured to a small indent at its heart. In a moment, she had whipped out a vial of crystalline-blue serum, a few drops fell softly where she'd gestured.

The scent of larkspurs pervaded the novices' shared workroom, and before their eyes, the indent began rising, until the bird's chest was back to normal.

Only then did Niva meet Isas's frustrated gaze, the undisputedly superior medicine in her hand.

- : -

"Osprey has recently been recognized by the duke for her role in eradicating the recent potato sickness," Crane said nonchalantly.

"Really - I hadn't heard. I was busy in the North, dealing with the recent wilting wheat. I don't know what I would have done," the capable Rosethorn admitted, "if Briar hadn't discovered the treachery from Pineridge."

Osprey and Briar followed the strands of the conversation, hands busy but eyes alert.

"I _did_ hear that news. Osprey was put in charge of discovering a detection for the poison in the ground while we found the cure."

As they cleaned up, the true debate began: "Osprey's tomato-oak has never been _thought_ of before."

"Of _course_ you would find nothing wrong with doing that to a plant," Rosethorn snapped. "It was sickly and starved and wouldn't grow outside your monstrosity of a greenhouse. Briar's cinnamon is much stronger."

"It has been grown before," Crane pointed out.

The apprentices looked up, Briar wide-eyed, Osprey resigned.

"They're arguing over... which of our plants is stranger?" Briar said slowly.

"So has -" Rosethorn began, and broke off as Daja practically fell into the greenhouse, a vine of copper metal blooming what looked like six-sided stars wrapped around her wrist.

"I'm sorry for interrupting, but Tris and Sandry and I were trying to make the ore as malleable as thread and Briar said you were in the glasshouse so..."

"Frostpine wins," Briar said wickedly.

- : -

Vanities

- : -

For Rosethorn's thirty-second birthday, Crane presents her a jar of aloe ointment for her complexion. She arrives at the breakfast table before dawn and finds that infuriating man sitting with Lark, conversing cordially over the toast (Lark, Rosethorn thinks sleepily, is amazing in so many ways), a small box beside his teacup. When she opens it and stares at the present, Crane murmurs simply, "You look like you needed some."

In retaliation, Rosethorn gets him a set of milk-thistles, each bred and trained to guard one of his glasshouse doors. After all, as Rosethorn says, "I just thought you might find it useful, maybe even essential. If a ten-year-old could break in and nearly confound your guard spells, your security can't be very good."

(Somewhere in the background, she can hear Lark sighing.)

- : -

Past and Present

- : -

The teacup steams between her fingers. Rosethorn raises it slowly, noting with humor that though everything else has changed, this celestial blue teacup is still pristine and perfect.

_They_ aren't, any longer. Rosethorn's hair is streaked with gray; Crane dyes his, but he cannot hide the wrinkles on his face.

"To think," Rosethorn muses, "you chased the future First Dedicate of Winding Circle out of your greenhouse."

"To think," Crane sniffs, "the future First Dedicate stole a _shakkan_."

Rosethorn has to grin. "At least now, you'll have an excuse for why he could break in."

Crane sips his tea with dignity and doesn't deign to reply. "To think," he begins a new verbal play, "you threatened to hang the future Duchess of Emelan in your well."

"Really?" Rosethorn wonders. "I must find an excuse to say it again. To my new students, perhaps?"

- : -

_The end_

**Well?**


	6. Afterthoughts

_You know how I said it was really the end? Hahaha... maybe I should just stop making promises like that. Since this featured a bit of Crane & Rosethorn, too, I thought I would post it here, though it wasn't a SMACKDOWN story.  
><em>

_Written for Quatre-sama (Lisafer on Goldenlake), who requested **Crane in his greenhouse** on the Goldenlake Wishing Tree. Warning: background character death._

* * *

><p><strong>Afterthoughts<br>**_By icecreamlova_

- : -

The sun rose, rays refracting pure gold off Dedicate Crane's greenhouse and making it sparkle like a precious jewel. Along with the work rooms and healing wards of the Water Temple, and the ever-busy hub, the greenhouse was one of the centers of activity. It buzzed with chatter, most of it nervous, no matter how much its occupants tried to calm themselves before what promised to be another exhausting day of work.

Only one thought - one phrase - seemed to pierce that chatter, uniting disparate conversations: perhaps today, they would find the cure. In the absence of proper signs, the workers could hope.

- : -

The moment Dedicate Crane strode into his workroom, he knew something had changed overnight.

Rosethorn was so fixated by the wells laid out atop his workbench that she did not even poke fun at his tardiness. Her sardonic quips, every bit as sharp as he could hope for in a verbal sparring partner, had been the one reliable anchor throughout the epidemic (who would have thought, First Dedicate Elmsbrook, teacher and mage, of all people), disdain for his greenhouse and all, and its in absence, Crane was not sure if he was struck by vertigo or by hope. Probably both.

"Do you see this too?" Rosethorn, he noticed, had certainly decided on hope, but her lips were pressed together as if trying to hold it back, because disappointment was too common and too painful.

He was at her side in an instant, or in an eternity, almost afraid of taking a look for himself. A childish fear. Crane forced his eyes down.

"We must refine the senior women's section," he murmured, pointing to the relevant well with an elegant, trembling finger.

Rosethorn said nothing. She turned her face to his, and glared.

"And the broad diagnostic powder obviously needs more work," Crane added.

"Crane." There was a note of warning in her voice, now.

"I see it," Crane said. Indeed, all wells but one had a thin film over the top, wriggling and discomforting to the touch of his magic, but rendered almost unthreatening.

"Good," Rosethorn murmured, as though the confirmation were menial and necessary only to her pride.

They looked at each other. Neither seemed quite sure what to say to do the moment justice, and give it a streak of personal accomplishment. It was the first epidemic the two had cracked without a guiding hand from more experienced colleagues. Crane did not know if there was anything to say.

"But this one," Crane said, switching back to a professional mindset, "will not be sufficient."

"I have eyes, Crane," Rosethorn said tartly. "The others."

Every category had proven successful EXCEPT the one that held their teacher's. But it still enclosed almost everyone in the population.

Crane nodded. He crossed the room in an instant, yelling for Osprey, who arrived in time to receive a list of long, detailed instructions. Crane shut the door behind her without a second glance.

- : -

Rosethorn's assistant was making careless mistakes again.

He had twice added more drops than he ought to, spoiling the entire tray, and worse, had forgotten to notify others of his mistake. That, or he simply had not noticed it, and Crane was not sure which horrified - terrified, if he were entirely honest - him more. No. It was entirely unacceptable, when they were so very close to discovering the final piece of the puzzle. When no one else provided a guiding hand, and Crane and Rosethorn were forced to work every step out themselves.

"I want him out," Crane told his partner.

Rosethorn did not even look up from tweaking her newest combination, replacing grapefruit with tangerine. "Then make him leave."

He narrowed her eyes at the unveiled disinterest - Crane was used to being the one who did not care about his assistants. "You are his teacher."

Her choke probably hid a snort. "Not by choice."

Crane shook his head and turned away. Just one more chance.

- : -

"Out!"

- : -

His hands were beginning to blur before his eyes. That was the first sign Crane had that, perhaps, putting off the ritual cleansing and staying in the greenhouse was not the best idea.

Even Rosethorn had gone home. Maybe she was, as she had always claimed to be, the smarter one. Crane thought it more likely that Rosethorn had returned to Discipline for comfort, because there would be someone there waiting for her.

Dedicate Crane was NOT envious.

He was, he told himself, too busy to be envious. And that would be immature.

Crane could almost hear Rosethorn's cackled "Exactly!" but pushed the thought aside. There was too much to do; he was not being immature because he didn't have the TIME to be.

His hands were still shaking.

"Master Crane." Osprey had returned from her errand. The cheer that seemed indomitable was gone, and her expression, if repeated, would give her deep wrinkles well before her time.

Crane waved a negligent hand in acknowledgement, too busy frowning down at his work to answer.

"Master Crane," she said again, voice taking on an edge of desperation, "the greenhouse needs cleansing."

"I know," Crane said. "I scheduled it myself."

"You need sleep," Osprey continued.

Crane did not respond, until her hand nudging his shoulder jerked him out of spell. Furious, he brushed the tentative touch off, snapping, "Remove your hand!" before realizing she'd already done so. He glared at her, preparing to fly into rage, and, for once in the day, shout rather than command, except - Crane did not generally lose control. He did not shout with unbridled emotion.

He was too tired with the strain of full responsibility.

"I need sleep too," Osprey told him, earnest, "but I can't leave you here." She returned his gaze levelly, anger rolling off like oil though she was no doubt exhausted too.

So Crane went.

- : -

He did not visit his sick teacher the next day, but walked straight to the greenhouse, scrubbing and cleaning as the other helpers, who made their process run smoothly - Crane knew that every person played their part, even if their faces were distinct only because some had angered irritated him, while others had not - averted their faces to keep from staring. Even Rosethorn looked vaguely surprised that he did not wait, but she said nothing.

(Osprey grinned at him from outside the enclosed offices where he and Rosethorn labored, not wary, in the least, despite his anger the night before. Very few were able to understand his particular behavior patterns, and Osprey was the newest. Maybe he would keep her on.)

The breakthrough, when it came in late afternoon (lunch only a distant memory, dinner and sleep feeling out of reach) made him jerk in surprise. Crane waited until his composure was intact, then went over to Rosethorn's table, where the mixture glistened with blurry, undulating colors. It was familiar, but not precisely identical, to the previous pattern that coughs and chills had brought, a few years ago - a little changed. The sickness floated on top, buoyed away by the power of their medicine.

"The elder female category?" he croaked out.

Rosethorn nodded. She did not try to change the subject, like he had the day before. "We need to get it out now."

There was no arguing. A scribe, who Crane had banished the day before on account of being unbearably incompetent, returned to make neat copies of the formulation, then left without another word for the two. Crane and Rosethorn focused on making enough to soothe the sickest in the Water Temple's healing halls, and buoyed by triumph, Crane threw open the glass doors to tell the other workers of the success.

It was, he noticed, very quiet when everyone turned to him. Rosethorn's fingers, whorls pressing into his sleeve, made him fall silent and glance questioningly at her.

Crane looked around again. Most of the activity of that morning was gone - had ceased, by all appearances, that morning - and some of his staff were huddled in groups, murmuring quietly. Most had not even turned when he entered the outer workroom, but many of those who did had faces either entirely, painfully bare of emotion, or just as painfully red and blotchy and full of it.

Osprey was one of the last to look at the two of them. She said only three words. "First Dedicate Elmsbrook."

"When?" Rosethorn asked.

"This morning."

"You did not think it relevant to tell us?" demanded Crane, drawing a glare from his assistant.

"The healers told us, she'd ordered us not to," Osprey said. But it was very clear, from the way she looked down, for an instant, who had been responsible for actually enforcing that order.

Tomorrow, Crane knew. Tomorrow he would be angry. Right now, Crane would fix his mind on the cool, smooth logic that there was no chance, that the gods would no be so cruel, to let her slip away simply because her students had proven able to tackle an epidemic without her guidance. (But it had not been without her guidance, considering how many words she had for the two when they visited; and they had not been successful, because without her, they had been too late.) It was foolishness, not to be indulged in.

The plants in his greenhouse were wriggling, if they could, and trying to burst restraints if they could not. Crane couldn't tell if it was because of him, or Rosethorn, both so suddenly removed from the situation that he only realized that they'd been given seats when they were sitting on them.

- : -

Winding Circle ran more determinedly than ever before, as though each person were driven by a single, overwhelming intent. The day was too short; there was no time to stop and feel just how deep the sorrow ran, when there were batches of medicine to prepare, and distribute.

But busy or not, the sun had dropped beneath Winding Circle's walls, and only the chirping of crickets mingled with the melancholic chants.

And within the shifting, interlocking shadows, the temple was mourning.

- ; -

**Well?**


End file.
